State Psychiatric Hospital Was Rife With Suicide Risks, Inspection Found

Alaine Griffin / Hartford Courant

Inspectors found that Connecticut Valley Hospital was filled with fixtures, hardware, furniture, and cracks and crevices that significantly heightened the risk of suicide at the aging state facility in Middletown.

Inspectors found that Connecticut Valley Hospital was filled with fixtures, hardware, furniture, and cracks and crevices that significantly heightened the risk of suicide at the aging state facility in Middletown. (Alaine Griffin / Hartford Courant)

The state psychiatric hospital treating many suicidal and self-injurious patients was filled with outmoded fixtures, beds, hardware, appliances, and gaps, cracks, and crevices that significantly heightened the risk of suicide, a recent inspection found.

The dangerous conditions existed throughout the patient buildings at Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown, from plastic boxes at the top of bathroom doors that created a “ligature risk” to the tracks of privacy curtains between patient beds that had non-tamper-resistant hardware.

The presence of these numerous “ligature points” placed patients in immediate jeopardy, the inspection report said.

“The over-the-bed nightlights throughout the … patient rooms were a ligature-point hazard,’’ read one of the observations in the 58-page report done by the state Department of Public Health.

The lights, “when tested with a lanyard, held an adult male placing body weight with a downward motion,” the report stated.

The narrative noted that the dangerous lights, and most of the other risky conditions observed in the inspection, hadn’t been identified in any recent risk-analysis done by officials of the hospital and the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services.

The public-health agency, which has been omnipresent at the hospital campus since prolonged abuse of psychiatric patient William Shehadi was discovered at the hospital’s Whiting Forensic Division, conducted the safety survey on behalf of federal Medicare and Medicaid officials. The abuse at Whiting resulted in the criminal arrests of 10 staff members and the suspension of a total of 37 patient-care workers and nurses.

The safety survey was done in September and early October. The Courant obtained the report Wednesday.

It appears from the hospital’s corrective measures, which are listed as part of the report, that the safety concerns have been addressed. Workers have removed lights, replaced obsolete beds and hardware, and installed wedges over certain fixtures that would frustrate someone trying to attach a ligature.

“Connecticut Valley Hospital has submitted a plan of correction. The plan was accepted,” said Mary Kate Mason, DMHAS director of government affairs. “The hospital is implementing the steps outlined in the plan and is waiting for a re-survey from CMS related to compliance.”

DPH will be conducting an unannounced survey of CVH to “ensure that the hospital is implementing and complying with its plan of correction,” said Maura Downes, the DPH director of communications.

A decade ago, a federal investigation that followed a cluster of patient suicides at Connecticut Valley found numerous safety violations and structural deficiencies.

Legislators, at a hearing last month on the abuse at Whiting, expressed anger and bewilderment that some of those same safety hazards still existed 10 years later.